


Wristcutters

by afancywaytofall



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2014-03-02
Packaged: 2018-01-14 07:03:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1257262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afancywaytofall/pseuds/afancywaytofall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry, a depressed twenty-something commits suicide after the break-up of his longtime girlfriend. Instead of heaven or hell, he wakes up in an afterlife filled entirely of people who have committed suicide. Based on the movie Wristcutters: A Love Story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wristcutters

 

He goes swiftly. Harry hadn’t expected just how painful death could be; he held back groans as he made careful vertical incisions across each wrist. As he drifted toward his bathroom floor he realized how pathetic the situation really was, how he had only been depressed for half a year, how he would die with his ex-girlfriend’s face pictured before him, immobile, on his nightstand. His last thought is of whether she would list his suicide as just an addition to the long list of reasons why he disappointed her, and always will disappoint.

He wakes, painfully, in a room that isn’t his. A quick check shows that it isn’t a hospital either. There are people in beds like his on either side of him, all turned facing away from him. The man to his right has a sickening wound at the back of his head, a bullet hole lining up with the edge of his thinning hair and bald spot. Harry’s eyes go wide and he turns to his left, watching the young girl’s labored breaths. She’s not injured, he thinks, until she slowly turns to face him. Her eyes are dull but shining, and her face is a pale translucent blue. She doesn’t seem to see him, just stares in his general direction until it her face suddenly shuts down like being keeping her eyes open requires too much effort. She closes her eyes and seems to fall asleep on the spot. 

Harry suddenly remembers that he shouldn’t be watching some girl fall asleep. He shouldn’t be watching anything at all. He should be dead, lying in a hospital morgue, lying in a coffin. Maybe his suicide didn’t work. He lifts his arms up slowly, expecting bandages or an open, gory wound, but instead he sees closed scars. He runs his finger across his left wrist and winces at the touch. He’s not freaked out by it, or by anything he’s seen after waking up, and he vaguely wonders why. It doesn’t seem to be important for some reason. 

At that moment an older man walks into the room and spots him. 

“Welcome to Hell,” he states, leaning against the doorframe with an essence that seems out of place for his age. Harry blinks. “I’m just fucking with you, kid.” the man laughs a little as he talks. “This isn’t hell. Or it very well could be. It’s fucking hot here.”

“Where are we then?” Harry asks, and his voice is rough, heavy from sleep. 

“This is the afterlife. And before you ask, you can’t stay here. I’ll give you like, a day to find your own place. ” The man leaves then, coolly turning on his heel and walking back out. 

 _He’s dead,_ Harry thinks. _I’m dead._ And that’s it.

 

 

He gets a job at a pizza place nearby. The pay is shit, and so is the food. His boss finds him an apartment he can share with a haggard looking 30 year old. He sleeps in a small bed in the living room. It doesn’t even face the tv.

The afterlife is surprisingly dull. Harry sees the same tired faces every day, prepares the same disgusting food every day, and he goes home wishing he was dead. Or more dead. It’s not much different than his actual life. The thought is almost laughable.

Sometimes, late at night when he can’t sleep, he finds himself at a bar. He sits at a table by himself, a beer in hand and a bag of chips open at the table. All the bar plays is slow, sad music, and no one dances. People convene in small groups in the corners, talking or attempting to flirt in low voices. The girls smile and fake laugh, throwing their hair over their shoulders. The boys nod with their hands at their sides, zoned out. Other than that, nothing happens.Nothing ever happens.

 

A couple of months later, Harry comes to the bar at a particularly late hour and is welcomed by the sight of a large group of ladies centered around a thin man in a tight black leather jacket. They’re all obviously trying to get into his pants, but he holds a cigarette to his lips and tries to look uninterested.The other men glare at him from their respective spots. 

“You’re late,” the man says, “It’s about time you showed up.” He gets up and walks over to Harry, yanking him by his sleeve over to the pool table. The girls sigh and back away. 

“Um,” Harry starts as the man lines up the pool balls, “I don’t know you.”

“Oh. I’m Zayn.” Zayn reaches out to shake Harry’s hand.

“Harry.”

“Sorry I singled you out, I just needed a way to escape. This beauty is a curse.” Zayn laughs, cool and easy. It’s genuine. Harry smiles, and the movement feels foreign. 

“Sooo,” Zayn draws out the word, speaking as he lines his stick up to a colored ball, “what brings you here?”

“To this bar?”

“To this life.” Zayn strikes the ball and it bounces off the side of the table, going nowhere close to the net.

“That’s a pretty personal question.” Harry frowns, and it’s his turn to play, he hits a striped ball with such force it almost bounces off the table.

“Not really. It’s pretty obvious that we all killed ourselves so we might as well tell each other how.” Zayn’s next hit lands the cue ball in the net. He curses under his breath.

“Well, in that case, I killed myself because my girlfriend dumped me.”

“Geez, Harry, some people have real problems.”

“It’s not a joke.” Harry says, offended. “I was going to marry her.” Zayn sighs.

“I was just kidding. I’m one to talk, I offed myself because I was bored.”

“That’s not that bad of a reason.”

“It’s a horrible reason.” They both laugh.

Life (or not-life) gets a bit easier with Zayn around. They go to the bars together and get wasted on most nights. Harry regrets it every morning, but as night rolls around he can’t bring himself to stop wanting to drink and drink. He’s not an alcoholic, or he wasn’t before. The drinks just make everything seem less real. 

Each nights the girls flock to Zayn, and on most nights he sends them away. Sometimes, though, when he’s passed a certain amount of drinks he’ll entertain them, have them wrapped around his finger. He’ll pick the most attractive girl out of the group then and take her home. On those nights Harry stays for one more drink then walks back to his apartment alone. Zayn is always trying to hook Harry up, but it never seems right. He still aches for his lost love.

“You’ve got to stop moping around like that.”

“Like what?” It’s early in the evening. Harry’s only on his second drink.

“Like a kicked puppy.”

“I do not act like that.”

“You kind of do,” a girl sitting next to Zayn says. He hadn’t noticed her before. Maybe he does.

“Yeah, well you try being in love. It sucks.” Harry defends.

“You’re not in love, man, you’re dead.” Zayn says, and the girl seems to find this hilarious. He wraps his arms around her.

“Whatever. You don’t get it.” Harry leans back in his chair. Zayn isn’t even listening. Instead he’s shamelessly got this girl he’s just met in his lap, sloppily making out with her right in front of Harry. He gets up and leaves.

The next day he wakes up with a plan. He’s going to commit suicide, again. His theory is that he can’t land anywhere worse than this, maybe the powers that be will understand he really means it this time. He’s at the store gathering what’s to be his own last supper when someone calls his name. 

“Harry? I thought that was you. I can’t believe it!” It’s Olly, one of Harry’s old colleagues. There’s an imprint of what looks like a rope across his neck. 

“Hey, um, I didn’t expect to see you here.” Harry says awkwardly. 

“Yeah, well, you know. They say suicides happen in three’s.”

“Three?” 

“Yeah. You, me, Caroline. Three.” Olly says it like it’s something that Harry should already know. 

“Caroline!?” Caroline. Ex-girlfriend Caroline. Harry’s Caroline.

“She offed herself a couple of months after you. I thought you knew that.”

“No, no,” Harry stammered, his brain going wild. “I’ve got to go.” Harry runs out of the store, dropping his groceries on the way out. He mumbles an apology to the grocer who responds by lifting up both of her middle fingers. Harry doesn’t care. _Caroline’s here,_ he thinks. _That’s all that matters._

 

 

 


End file.
